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How One Goldman Sachs Trader Made More Than $100M

wsj.com

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Re: How One Goldman Sachs Trader Made More Than $100M

#31

Post by kornish »

snarfy wrote: post #25
temuze wrote: post #6

How to get around the WSJ paywall: - Copy the URL - Paste the URL into the Facebook textbox where you would create a post - Click on the preview, so the referrer url is Facebook Could probably make a Chrome extension for this...

Or stop posting them to HN? Seriously, would we tolerate any other subscription required site? Why does WSJ get a pass?

WSJ gets a pass because the content is often high-quality and, as demonstrated above, it's trivially easy to get around the paywall. Were it not trivially easy, it wouldn't get a pass.

Re: How One Goldman Sachs Trader Made More Than $100M

#32

Post by probably_wrong »

TwoFactor wrote: post #17
temuze wrote: post #6

How to get around the WSJ paywall: - Copy the URL - Paste the URL into the Facebook textbox where you would create a post - Click on the preview, so the referrer url is Facebook Could probably make a Chrome extension for this...

Click the "web" link under the article title, then click on the first result.

That doesn't always work.

Source: I'm on mobile right now, it doesn't work. Country of origin and/or incognito mode could be a factor.

Re: How One Goldman Sachs Trader Made More Than $100M

#33

Post by baby »

cheez wrote: post #24
edutechnion wrote: post #2

Short version: banker provides liquidity to the markets and buys up junk bonds from panicked sellers at 40 cents on the dollar. Banker then sells the bonds for more money as the panic dissipates. Some people wonder if important banks like GS should still be making volatile bets like this.

Buy low sell high

This. Buying low is a negligible loss for a bank if things don't turn out the way they want it to.

Re: How One Goldman Sachs Trader Made More Than $100M

#34

Post by lordnacho »

jhulla wrote: post #23
lordnacho wrote: post #18

Like the article says, it's very hard to distinguish between market making and prop trading. Especially in illiquid stuff like corporate bonds, the MM needs to hold positions for extended durations, so they have a valid excuse to not be closed down entirely by Volcker. The real reason they make all that money is flow. The guy on a desk like that knows what customers are calling, what they're concerned about, roughly…

Market making is inherently prop trading - the firm's capital is at risk - unless trades are paired or hedged immediately. For thinly traded stuff that may take a while to unload, it is just prop trading. I personally think Banks should be incredibly boring utilities. But that ship sailed a long time ago. Lots of great stuff was thrown out the window in January. My winning bet for the year was to start buying EWC (is…

The mood among bank staff... everything is shut down by compliance, and if they could, they'd work in a different industry. People I know at banks, anyway.

Re: How One Goldman Sachs Trader Made More Than $100M

#35

Post by JumpCrisscross »

snarfy wrote: post #25
temuze wrote: post #6

How to get around the WSJ paywall: - Copy the URL - Paste the URL into the Facebook textbox where you would create a post - Click on the preview, so the referrer url is Facebook Could probably make a Chrome extension for this...

Or stop posting them to HN? Seriously, would we tolerate any other subscription required site? Why does WSJ get a pass?

Seriously, why do we need in-depth journalism uncovering frauds like Theranos when we can have free blogspam about personal experiences at coding boot camps.

Re: How One Goldman Sachs Trader Made More Than $100M

#36

Post by DashRattlesnake »

snarfy wrote: post #25
temuze wrote: post #6

How to get around the WSJ paywall: - Copy the URL - Paste the URL into the Facebook textbox where you would create a post - Click on the preview, so the referrer url is Facebook Could probably make a Chrome extension for this...

Or stop posting them to HN? Seriously, would we tolerate any other subscription required site? Why does WSJ get a pass?

> Why does WSJ get a pass?

At least in this case, the WSJ article looks like it's the primary source for this story:

https://www.google.com/#tbm=nws&q=%22Tom+Malafronte%22

The other hits that come up (right now) are foreign-language articles and/or cite the WSJ.

More broadly, my guess would be the WSJ is tolerated because it often has interesting stories that aren't covered or covered well anywhere else (and we're all fairly adept at avoiding its paywall).

Re: How One Goldman Sachs Trader Made More Than $100M

#38

Post by teh_klev »

temuze wrote: post #6

How to get around the WSJ paywall: - Copy the URL - Paste the URL into the Facebook textbox where you would create a post - Click on the preview, so the referrer url is Facebook Could probably make a Chrome extension for this...

Or...just archive.is:

http://archive.is/rIBZT

Re: How One Goldman Sachs Trader Made More Than $100M

#40

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dogma1138 wrote: post #28
edutechnion wrote: post #2

Short version: banker provides liquidity to the markets and buys up junk bonds from panicked sellers at 40 cents on the dollar. Banker then sells the bonds for more money as the panic dissipates. Some people wonder if important banks like GS should still be making volatile bets like this.

GS has about 90 bln in total equity and nearly a trillion dollars in total assets. 100m sounds high but 100m is a rounding error especially if spread across 100s or even 1000s of trades.

Note that they made $100 million. I did not see a value at risk, gross notional or netted, presented.
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